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EOSC 2011 Commentary: Round 25

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Go to: Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4, Round 5, Round 6, Round 7, Round 8, Round 9, Round 10, Round 11, Round 12, Round 13, Round 14, Round 15, Round 16, Round 17, Round 18, Round 19, Round 20, Round 21, Round 22, Round 23, Round 24, Round 25, Round 26, Round 27, Round 28, Round 29, Round 30, Round 31, Round 32, After the Tournament.

Our numbers are back down to 40 this morning, and pairings have been recalculated, as one of our players has taken ill, and his wife has also withdrawn from the event to look after him. We hope that they will be able to return later in the day.

We have eight games left to play, and Theresa Brousson (MLT) and Chinedu Okwelogu (NGA) start the day on 19-5, Mikki Nicholson (Eng) 16-8, Helen Gipson (Sco) and David Delicata (MLT) 15-9, with five more players still theoretically in the running on 14-10: Jayne Mackenzie (Eng), Cecil Muscat (MLT), John Barker (AUS), Pramit Kamath (IND) and Dan Sandu (ROM).

Theresa plays John in the Board 1 annotated game. She is feeling the pressure of being annotated, and says she is playing poorly. Most players would be happy to be on an eight-game winning streak with such “poor” play. She beats John 495-363, putting him out of the running, adding a little to her average, and more importantly bringing her spread to +2250, more than 600 points above her nearest rival.

At Board 2, Chinedu crushes Jayne 468-313, ending her hopes for the championship.

At Board 3, Mikki defeats Pramit 474-379. Jayne, Nicky Vella-Laurenti (MLT) and Pramit are still strong contenders for the Class B prize, all on 14-11.

At Board 4, Helen beats Cecil; and at Board 5, David beats Dan. So in the end, all five strong contenders put an extra game's distance between them and the long shots, and now it's just a question of which of them will finish in the top three, and in what order.